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Most Stressful Job on the Road: Staying Alert While Not Driving an Autonomous Car

Safety drivers have critical job of backing up the computers that largely control the vehicles

Earlier this week, the Tempe, Ariz., police released a video of the fatal accident involving a pedestrian and an Uber self-driving vehicle. We asked experts to analyze the footage and explain what factors may have caused systems to fail. Photo: National Transportation Safety Board

For a job that is supposed to involve limited action, being a test operator in a self-driving car is surprisingly stressful.

With their hands loosely around the steering wheels and right feet at the ready, test operators are trained to take control and swerve or hit the brake when their robot cars act erratically or encounter something unexpected, say current and former operators for Uber Technologies Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo.